


the deathsinger's dirge

by hoverbun



Series: what happens after death [5]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-29 20:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13934643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoverbun/pseuds/hoverbun
Summary: The final day Karthus is alive, and the first song to be written.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s on what he _believes_ is the second day that breathing in the Mist starts to burn.

It is not warm, like the sparks of fireside light, or perhaps like warm ashes from smothered flame. There is not much time for him to question the complexity a statement such as _the air is not warm but it burns my throat_ may contain, for ‘to burn’ anything one requires a source of potent heat to deliver char. But he knows that much farther north in Valoran there are lands of heavy snow that freeze the air in such a veil of ice that the body can stiffen, fall victim to the chill, and the ice is so sharp that it burns the skin. Karthus thinks the air on the Shadow Isles is as cold as the northern frostlands - perhaps colder.

Snow is cold. Ice is colder. But the seawater that lingers in the air burns Karthus’ throat the way swallowing small, sharp pebbles does. Gravelled debris that scrape down his insides no matter how he covers his mouth to filter the air, for even covering his mouth will dizzy him from eventual lack of any deep, meaningful breaths. The living dead boy stumbles through the deep forests of whatever numbered island he happens upon, the cold body of the sailor bobbing in the ocean as potent in his mind as it may ever be. It does not terrify him. The dead shell that washed ashore behind him did not, will not humble him.

But the pain in his throat might stop him, all the same.

He leans upon the staff to steady his step, the same one he had taken with him since the first step out of the walls of Noxus Prime. His teeth grit behind a grimace, from the pain of his throat and the pain down his wrist, where an insignia of the old churches bleeds down his drying robes. He no longer drips with seawater from the salt-laced baptism he performed on himself, but the memory of it lingers. Like the last bit of life inside of him that has yet to be wholly devoured by the Mist - eaten from the inside, picked apart like the last of carrion ribs.

His soul must taste like salt water and whatever crusts the underside of boats. It must be absolutely disgusting, and he starts to laugh at the idea of disgusting his new spiritual hosts, so he takes a deep breath to bite the spirits out of the sky, sucking in through his teeth. Karthus breathes in until his lungs can’t take anymore, the grit of the air cutting deep inside of him and twisting him dizzy losing his grip on the tallystaff and tripping to the earth.

The last of his bones collapse into the dust and dirt, and he coughs viciously as the island’s poison takes inside him. A bloody mist splatters against the ground, his tongue now seared with the taste of copper. Karthus wipes the back of his thin and worn hand over his lower lip, looking down at the bloodied saliva that now stains his skin. Carefully, he lifts the staff and pulls himself back to his feet, coughing into his sleeve to relieve himself of any more bloody remnants of his gored throat from staining his skin.

Magic flows through him, now. The last of his life is leaving his mortal coil, and it’s allowing him to get a little closer before it releases.

He’s dying. Is this what dying feels like? Warm and cold and a throat ripped by the grit and grain in the air? He’s dizzy. He’s tired. He keeps walking, and he keeps walking, until he thinks he’s walked the length of the island before there is still more to the path, framed by a forest’s grove. There’s a temple.

A temple.

Building.

The remnants of civilization?

Karthus doesn’t make it to the foot of the steps before he drops again, though manages to catch himself before his body crashes into stone steps and instead sits down it. One hand on a step ahead and the other gripping the staff still, he pulls himself up the steps, one by one, until the door opens.

It is a monk. He is short, wide and muscular. A vial of iridescent blue dangles around his neck. His hands rest upon a spade with a hook at the heel - and his eyes, terrifically beautiful and just as blue as the open sea, stare in wonder at the dying man.

Karthus smiles with rotten teeth stained red from a stolen voice.


	2. Chapter 2

The monk brought him inside, half on a note of desperation at the sight of lingering life inside of a being upon the Shadow Isles, however faint and unwilling it was to remain. 

He sits with Karthus, watching him in mournful wonder as Karthus stares at the point of his staff and pinches the pointed edye between two fingers. He pays the monk such little attention that he almost forgets his presence all together - until the monk heaves a heavy sigh and speaks. 

“You should not be alive,” he says, with a voice so soft it reminds Karthus of an old burial song. 

“You are correct,” Karthus replies. “I am not.”

“You speak my language, yet your accent... is foreign.” The monk seems confused with his remark. It is the most inflection he has had so far. “Where did you learn to speak that?”

Karthus looks in the direction of the monastery door. “Out there,” he says, and points a thin, starving finger to the outside view from a shattered window. “And even in here, among them - the spirits. They speak to me, here. I understand them.”

”From where do you hail?”

”Here. I am of these Shadow Isles, now.” Karthus wants to swallow, to aid his dry, drying, dying throat. But his throat will not allow him. The muscles strain inside and tense whenever he attempts to. It hurts when he tries. 

The monk frowns. “No. In life - where did you hail?”

”Noxus.” His hands touch the staff once more. Among the land of the dead, and his fixation only holds on the last remnant of his life. “I do not wish to return. I have travelled far from Noxus to discover the beauty of these islands for myself.”

”You are several centuries too late, my boy - these isles have not been beautiful for a long time.”

Karthus laughs. A dry, hoarse, cracking laugh that doesn’t hold itself together and hurts more than breathing. “Not at all. The spirits that have called me have introduced me to a land far greater than any forest’s grove.”

He does not understand the silent anger to cross the monk’s expression, for he remains as tepid and mournful as ever. Perhaps the only rage that exists within him anymore is holy rage. “Beauty does not bloom in such suffering.”

”It is not suffering - it is freedom.”

”I have endured the ‘ _freedom_ ’ of the isles for much longer than you have known its myth.” The monk reaches for his shovel - he uses it to lift himself up. He only towers over Karthus’ seated form; he appears short, stocky. “Most who arrive on this land are among the throes of death from a terrible tragedy. I bid their bodies to the ocean, so they may not live in torment among the undead.”

He lifts the shovel, and knocks the spade on the stone. Firm, but without threat. Mist gathers around him like a shawl, and Karthus just wants to watch it swirl like chalk water. 

“I do not know many who have sought us as pilgrimage. I do not have what you seek, young man.”

”But you have already begun to fascinate me - give me your time,” Karthus requests, his smile a twisted hope as he reaches for the monk. He is returned with a swat from his large hand.

”No. I must ask you to leave - take with you your fantasy of death.”

He is dizzy when he stands. He is dizzy when the monk forces him out the door. Karthus leans against old stone and drags himself down the wall, a tired, dying smile over him while he presses his cheek to the door. 

Karthus doesn’t fall asleep, but he dreams of spirits come to claim him all the same.


End file.
